Angie Porcaro

Mr. Jockers

Period 5 ILA

Feb. 7, 2017

 

Concussion

 

It had been a long day at school: two quizzes that I was almost positive I’d failed, an hour and a half worth of hockey, and two hours worth of homework. Just to top that off, I wasn’t feeling well. My day had gone in slow motion- everything was so long and tiring, so when I get home from hockey, I decide to take a break.

 

 With excitement, I rush to my room and grip my phone and my headphones- so I can dance in my sweaty clothes, of course… I jam the headphones into my phone and choose my Playlist: “Pump.”  Before I toss the headphones into my ear, I hear the “sizzle” of dinner going downstairs, knowing that I only have about ten minutes to dance before I am obnoxiously called down to eat. I scroll through my playlist and choose a quick song, “Hype” by Drake. About a minute into the song, I find myself sliding around my room with a big smile on my face, and my music on full blast.  After skipping through songs for about five minutes, I find another song to slide around to. Jumping and sliding around, I suddenly feel my slippery socks fall out from under me and my head slams onto the hardwood. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, looking down at my feet and feeling a splitting pain in my head. I get up in pain and rip my blaring headphones out of my ear. I toss my phone on my bed and walk out of my room, trying to remember what had just happened to me.

 

My head splitting in half, I go downstairs and inform my mom what had happened. As I’m walking to my mom, my family stares at me like I have six heads!

 

I get to my mom to tell her as my family gathers around us.

 

“Honey, what happened to you?” She asked with worry in her voice.

 

“Yeah what happened to you?? You look like you just woke up or something!” Vinny, my brother, says expecting this to be a good story.

 

“Please don’t tell me you did something stupid again, you know what happened the last time you hurt you injured yourself…” My sister adds.

 

“I’m not exactly sure,” I say feeling clueless, “I fell and I think I really hurt my head. It bounced up off of the floor and now it feels like it’s splitting in half.”

 

“Well, what were you doing exactly?” My mom asks me, now knowing that it could have been anything.

 

“Um… Well… after I did everything for school, I was feeling like I needed a break,” I was interrupted.

 

“Oh gosh, what could she have possibly done now?” My sister says, looking ready to hear the rest of it.

 

“Anyway, I was tired and I wanted to take a break, so I decided to dance in my room. Then one thing led to another and I fell with my slippery socks, right onto the hardwood floor…” I say in embarrassment.

 

I hear my siblings laugh and I can’t help but let out a little chuckle too. After all, I was dancing… in my room… on the hardwood floor.

 

“Oh goodness-” My mom stops herself and chuckles quietly with my siblings and I. “Why don’t you just go to bed and we will go to the doctors first thing tomorrow.”

 

I walk up to my room in pain and lay down on my bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I’d fallen asleep almost instantly. The next morning, I woke up and we started heading to the doctors. I walk down to the car and my mom hands me a pair of sunglasses:

 

“Here, you should probably put these on. If your head hurts, I’m sure these will help with the light.”

 

I put them on and we leave the house.  As soon as we arrive at the doctor’s, they are ready to see me.

 

“Ok so tell me what happened, Angie.” Dr. Quinn asks.

 

“…Well, I was dancing in my room and the next thing I knew, I fell on the floor and hit my head.” I say yet another time in embarrassment.

 

Dr. Quinn lets out a quiet chuckle- Just like my mom- “Ok well let’s test you for a concussion.” She says with a smile on her face.

 

Almost every test the doctor gave me threw off my balance.

 

“Well it seems you have a concussion. No sports, school or homework until you feel much better- and of course, obviously no more dancing for a few days.” She says, still laughing, “I hope you learned something from your incident last night-” She says to me as she looks at my mom.

 

“Yes, I did learn something… Just don’t wear socks.” I say.

 

After we left the doctor’s office, I went home , turned off all the lights in my room, and went to bed. If there’s one thing I learned in these past two days- it’s exactly what I said to Dr. Quinn- next time, don’t wear socks.